Messages - Logan

We do have another update planned -- we're hoping to release it soon in fact. The reason for the delay is that the next version will include an entirely new game mode, which understandably has required a lot more attention.

Being able to leave the computer mid-mission was actually a bug. During a mission the game is set up in such a way that using other parts of the train -- even just the throttle -- can have unintended side-effects.

From time to time, you'll receive a dispute canister where exactly this sort of situation occurs -- one carriage leader will ask for resources from another. You can then either side with one of the parties, or allow them to negotiate the result themselves.

Firstly, I just wanted to mention that your GPU is below the minimum recommended specification, so we can't really provide good support for it.

That said, I have been able to fix the disappearing bars bug -- it only appears when the game is running in DirectX 9, and is actually a problem with Unity (the game engine) itself. Fortunately, I've been able to sort out a workaround for the next update.

As for the portraits -- can you try upgrading your video card drivers? According to the player log, your current drivers are from 2013! I'm not sure what Windows platform you're on, but the latest ones for your card for Windows 7 64-bit can be found here: http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/94790/en-us

1.6.0 has arrived and along with the usual bounty of streamlining improvements, fixes and tweaks, this update marks the debut of the mysterious and powerful Wanderers.

The Wanderers are Fearless who wish to leave the fog, but need the Engineer's help to do so. When you encounter a Wanderer, you'll have to decide what to do with them. If you let them on the train, they'll bring special abilities with them -- even more powerful than VIP modifiers.

The Wanderers' abilities come at a price, however. So, it's time to ask yourself: Just how far are you willing to go to survive the fog?

Also in this patch, we've added a number of settings to streamline the game for experienced players. These can be accessed via the new "Gameplay" options menu:

Page turning animations:Enabled by default. When disabled, all books in the game, including the carriage console notebook and manuals, will have their pages turn instantly. This can also provide a performance boost on systems with low-end CPUs.

Faster movement transitions:Disabled by default. When enabled, the crossfade effect when moving around the cabin and jumping between cabin areas will be much shorter. Turning using the keyboard is also significantly quicker.

Sleep immediately on time acceleration:Disabled by default. When enabled, pressing the time acceleration key (normally Tab) or clicking on the clock at the front of the cabin will make the player fall asleep immediately, bypassing the need to move to the bed and wait for the sleep animation to finish.

Everything included, changed and tweaked in 1.6.0 can be found below:

Added: The Wanderers. Wanderers are Fearless who wish to leave the fog, but need the Engineer's help to do so. Wanderers brought onto the train grant special powers... for a price.

1.5.0 also comes with a new loss condition: Stranded. As of this update, the train starts with just three beacons. If you use them all and run out of both passengers and fuel, it's game over. Don't worry, if you prefer the old way of doing things, a new modifier is available that provides unlimited beacons.

For users with less powerful system configurations, we've added a low-quality lighting mode, which can be set in the Graphics options. This should provide a healthy framerate boost, at the expense of visual fidelity.

We've also tweaked a few balance dials behind the scenes. The biggest change is that engine upgrades now boost the train's speed. However, damaged carriages will slow you down. To help you keep track of these bonuses and penalties, a new card with all the information you need has been added to the route plotting notepad in the front cabin.

Next up, Fearless are now much more of a threat. If you happen to experience a fear attack in the same sector as a Fearless unit, your train's defences against that attack will be halved. All the more reason to give the Fearless a wide berth...

Finally, hungry passengers will last longer before perishing and upgrades at higher tiers now require more time to complete.

For the nitty-gritty of 1.5.0, check out the full changelog:

Added: Five new fears: Witches, Buried, Spirits, Wasps and Snakes.

Added: "Stranded" loss condition. As of 1.5.0, the train starts with three signal beacons instead of an unlimited supply. Once these are expended and the train has no fuel and no passengers, the game will end in a loss. Modifiers are available for custom engineers to alter the beacon limit. This change does not affect games currently in progress.

Added: A card on the route plotting notepad that show the bonuses and penalties currently affecting the train's speed.

Added: Lighting Quality graphics option. This changes the rendering pipeline from deferred shading to deferred lighting, which results in a loss of lighting fidelity, but can substantially improve performance on low-end systems. Note that on the "Low" setting, directional occlusion is replaced with ambient occlusion.

Added: A detailed explanatory note regarding fear attacks now appears after the first such event. Players will find it positioned near the bed.

Added: Ambient noises from the first carriage can now be heard in the Engineer's cabin.

Added: Epilogue text is now exported when the game ends. On Windows, epilogues are stored in "My Documents\Fear Equation\Epilogues". On OS X, epilogues can be found in "Users/<USERNAME>/Documents/Fear Equation/Epilogues", where "<USERNAME>" is your OS X user name.

Balance: Increased the time it takes to complete upgrades at higher tiers.

I have to be more clear on that topic. The passengers seem to expect that you change the Lottery every day (otherwise the lottery would not meet its purpose). You could use the real randomized Lottery every day there is no scavenging mission (during transit to new locations).

We could probably make this clearer, but you can skip the lottery phase when it isn't required for a particular day and passengers will be picked at random (so a fair lottery).

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When you have finally arrived at your scavenging destination I find it hard to pick your best passengers for the job to be done.

That's fair enough -- it can get trickier as the train fills up. We may look to pull out experts in some fashion. Just wanted to make sure that you're away of the projection wheel filters? You can select between factions, train skills and mission skills, which makes it much easier to see who's the best at what in each carriage.

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Purges: too early, frequent and without concerns / Calm-Down-Modifier

The Calm Down modifier actually applies a hefty bonus already. Keep in mind that purges are a natural result of having carriages full of defenders. Ideally, you want your carriages to be neutral.

Hey flyer, thanks for the feedback. And don't worry, we definitely appreciate the details!

Just wanted to check -- are you running the latest version, 1.4.0? We've addressed a few issues brought up in your post in the last few updates.

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Sometimes the game skips the lottery phase.

Yep, we're aware of this issue and we're currently investigating. We did apply a fix in 1.4.0 that could make this happen, but we weren't able to replicate the problem to test. Thanks for the extra info about when it seems to happen, this will make it easier for us to zero in.

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the messages are very general only concerning supplies

The radio actually has four channel you can tune to using its dial -- supplies, help, mission and resources. Mission is a special channel only active during missions so you can eavesdrop on your scavengers, but the other three provide information about their respective topics. Just left / right click on the radio dial to change channels.

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to determine the location is rather cumbersome as the only available map is hard to read

We are considering a system to highlight locations of interest on the map when you hear something about them -- perhaps a note of some description -- though we haven't finalised anything at this stage.

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Map / route

The map is randomly generated, though it does adhere to a number of rules so it makes sense and supplies are distributed sensibly. Of course, edge cases can occur, so sometimes you do end up with maps that are easier than others.

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addition of switches as in real life train traffic

That's an interesting suggestion -- we have a few new bits and pieces still in the pipeline, but I don't think this is something we'd include.

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there is a need for directives how new passengers are integrated

This comes back to making sure you have the latest update -- we made some tweaks to how new passengers affect their carriages so they're not as immediately impactful. Otherwise, it's by design that the leaders claim new passengers and given you can move people after the fact, I can't see us making any changes in this regard.

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The general distribution of resources should be re-balanced.

We agree and this is an active area -- we make balances changes with every patch.

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It would be helpful to add a button to the passenger file.

That's a great idea -- we're always looking for ways to streamline mechanics. I'm not sure we can fit it into the next patch, but we can look to add this in the one after.

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as the lottery dialog hides some portions of the notebook with passenger information

That shouldn't be the case as of the latest patch -- the lottery card (and all other order cards) are a bit more to the right an no longer overlap the projection wheel.

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In the current build you have to pick each one again and again

This shouldn't be happening -- the lottery card actually remembers the previous day's selection (dead passengers excepted). If this isn't the case then a bug might have cropped up in the last version or so. We'll take a look.

It's possible, though we haven't had any problems with anti-aliasing on Mac previously.

The fact that it fails after running for a while (and somewhat randomly) would suggest a hardware issue -- overheating say -- which is causing data corruption on the GPU and the shader to fail. That said, if disabling SMAA fixes the problem for you, it could be the effect is misbehaving for another reason. We're still investigating at the moment.

Worse case scenario, we switch to another AA effect for OS X, the most likely candidate being FXAA.